After Dan was kind enough to provide me with a copy of SAE:IS until the FUBAR with the POD system is resolved, I managed to look at it before the New Year (Happy New Year by the way) and was able to work out the conversion process, more or less (hull numbers and torpedo ranges). But one thing perplexes me--why is the keel bombard modelled as it is? I would have thought it would have a longer-ranged weapon and with a high IMP value--it seems underpowered to me.

Happy New Year to you too (and any lost soul that may find themselves here)

As it stands the keel bombard has the longest range band in this setting, can potentially ruin the day for anything up to cruiser size and is not slow firing.It is not a common weapon, probably because it could easily change the feel of iron stars games. I think it is all too easy to expect super weapons like the Yamato (space cruiser) main gun. I prefer to think of sailing ships clad in boiler plate going at it toe to toe. Add powerful longer range weapons and it becomes I'll sit here, you stay over there and the first person to fire wins.

Well, yeah, but it requires a hull hit for that and it only does one IMP roll a turn, which means it's potentially less damaging than all but the lightest weapon. I concede the range part (esp. because in the IS rulebook for advanced targeting it's counted as a d12), but surely it should be a Piercing (3) weapon with ROF/IMP values to put it on the same footing, conversion-wise, as heavy primaries and secondaries.

I've used keel bombards a fair bit in design (consider my Small Fry) and a concept I had for another faction was heavy usage of keel bombards. Because of that, I want to make sure they're not comparatively underpowered.

The weapon itself. I feel like it should be a fairly simple conversion following the same rules as the normal primaries/secondaries etc--a range 18 or 30 weapon with the smallest bombard having an IMP of 2 and the largest having ROF 2, IMP 3 and the Fire Linked ability, and Piercing (3). Catastrophic just feels like such an odd fit for the bombard--it seems more reasonable to have Catastrophic for torpedoes.

Also, I might add, I've got a little niggle with the torpedoes, but not nearly as bad as the torpedo's ability for more hull damage in IS can't be modelled adequately enough in SAE and a simple damage modifier to IMP stat works. Maybe if there were a Hull Damage Only stat (which meant each damage point automatically was taken from the hull--no other roll necessary) that would be a good fit for the torpedo.